Nanosolar Chooses German Town for Solar Plant

Thin-film solar company says it's on track to start its solar-panel assembly line in Luckenwalde, Germany. No word yet on the company's solar-cell plant in San Jose, Calif., which is scheduled to begin production this year.

The company, which is developing a solar technology using copper-indium-gallium-diselenide instead of silicon, last year closed a $75 million Series-C round of funding and said the money, combined with government subsidies, would add up to $100 million (see Nanosolar Gets $100M for PV).

Nanosolar said it was building a 430-megawatt plant in San Jose, expected to be completed this year, and another factory, which would assemble more than 1 million solar panels annually, near Berlin (see Nanosolar to Build in San Jose).

CEO Martin Roscheisen confirmed Tuesday that preparatory work has begun on the German site. The Luckenwalde facility, expected to begin making panels in the first quarter of next year, will be able to make "multi-100" megawatts of solar panels annually once it's fully ramped up, he said.

The company hasn't yet released an update about the San Jose plant. But in an e-mail Tuesday, Roscheisen said the German plant was still scheduled to begin operations after the San Jose plant and added that more news about Nanosolar production would be coming soon.